At the forthcoming auction no. 260 of Gorny & Mosch in Munich, scheduled to take place on December 18, 2018, are going to be auctioned six antiquities that have been already identified by Dr. Christos Tsirogiannis as deriving from G. Becchina, when these antiquities were on sale at Christie’s (twice, in London, April 15, 2015…

The EAA published Benchmarks for Archaeology and Heritage Protection 2019 – 2024 for the upcoming elections of the European Parliament in May 2019. Special attention is paid to the prevention of illicit trade in antiques. Please share!

Dr. Christos Tsirogiannis, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Arts, Museum of Ancient Art, University of Aarhus, identified again two objects connected to Symes, Becchina and Medici in the upcoming antiquity auctions of Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Aphrodite’s head from the confiscated Symes and Michaelides archive (Sotheby’s, Lot 17, Auction December 4, 2018, London) Although this image…

From The Art Newspaper 14th November 201, by Anna Somers Cocks Nineteen of the accused in Operation Demetra face trial in December, while the alleged UK mastermind awaits extradition At a meeting about the looting of cultural heritage held in the British embassy in Rome in October, General Fabrizio Parrulli of the Comando Carabinieri per la…

From the Observer, by Noah Charney, November 7, 2018 It is unfortunately a well-known fact that the art trade has occasionally been infiltrated by unscrupulous characters—art forgers, flippers and thieves are among the first to come to mind. In modern art history, the cases of outright art theft are rare and newsworthy. But in the…

From Montreal Gazette, November 4, 2018 Italy’s populist government is to introduce tough new penalties for art and antiquities crimes as it aims to crack down on cultural theft as part of its nationalist agenda. The announcement comes after several high-profile restitutions of antiquities taken to London and New York and recovered only after being…

From The Antiquities Coalition, November 5, 2018. The Illicit Art Trade From plundering during the Crusades to Napoleon’s loot of Egypt, antiquities have long been symbols of worldliness and status. In today’s world, antiquities have become go-to investments for art consumers and market speculators. However, individuals with certain statuses, including those blacklisted and on sanctions…

INTERNATIONAL WINTER SCHOOL: Anthropology of forgery Art Collecting, Authentication and Innovative Tools for a Culture of Legality in Cultural Heritage February 25th – March 1st, 2019 – Padua, Italy The International Winter School “Anthropology of forgery. Art Collecting, Authentication and Innovative Tools for a Culture of Legality in Cultural Heritage” will continue exploring the topics…

Published by ABC News Australia, October 2018; written by freelance correspondent Walt Curnow. When authorities seized a diplomatic pouch at the port in Naples, they weren’t expecting to unearth a plot more suited to an Indiana Jones movie. The pouch — which was discovered in March last year — hid an eclectic assortment of Egyptian…

From DAILY SABAH, published October 19, 2018. The Istanbul Police Department’s Anti-Smuggling Crime Branch teams carried out the biggest seizure of historical artifacts in the history of the republic, with raids across 12 Turkish provinces, recovering 14,000 historical pieces and bags full of foreign currency as well as Turkish lira. The operation was carried out…

From the art-crime.blogspot.com; published October 24, 2018. Following a formal request by the Deputy Prosecutor for the District Anti-Mafia Directorate Carlo Marzella, preliminary reexamination judge of of the Court of Palermo, Antonella Consiglio, has dismissed the charge of mafia association against the Castelvetrano antiquities dealer Gianfranco Becchina. In her decision, the judge cited that the accusations used for the…